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I'm grateful not to have to make the Thanksgiving meal anymore!

In 1957, my sister was born on Thanksgiving Day.

In 1966, Steven and I had apartments in Seattle after both getting jobs with the telephone company. Because he had to work the day after Thanksgiving, we didn't go to Port Angeles. We were getting married the next month, so we spent Thanksgiving wrapping attendants' gifts and Christmas presents. We had the radio on and, of course, they kept talking about turkey dinner. After listening to the radio, we decided we had to have turkey on Thanksgiving and went to Denney's! We did have the real deal a couple of days later with my family.

Hope you'll share your memories!

Anita, thanks for this thread!

I remember my parents getting up early to make the pies and putting the ingredients together for the stuffing, that went in the turkey. Those present were just our immediate family, but it was awesome. My Mom was a great cook and taught me just about everything I know about cooking. To me, preparing a meal is easier than making a bed. We'll go to the clubhouse Thursday for the meal but no holiday's are complete without lots of leftovers. Turkey Divan, turkey salad, turkey sandwiches and turkey noodle soup. Not an ounce of meat will be discarded.

To this day my favorite Thanksgivings were spent at a restaurant with much of my relatives in the Chicago area from my father's side of the family. The picture I'm including here is from 1957 and I would have just turned 5 that month. I remember driving 1-2 hours in snow at least one year (well, my dad driving) but I just loved seeing all of these people and playing with my cousins. Everyone was so spread out around Chicago from North to South and tried to make it. About 10 years ago a relative posted a picture from one of these gtg's asking who it was holding a baby. Only a year before a cousin whose family had moved and lost touch with everyone had found another of my cousins through ancestry from DNA results. I met her (on FB) through that cousin as we would also be cousins. That picture was on our pages and she saw it and she was the baby in her father's arms!!! How cool is that! We still haven't met in person but feel like we've known each other forever. I wanted to post that picture but didn't find it in my quick search now. Anyway, those Thanksgivings are some of my happiest family memories.

Not too many exciting Thanksgiving memories here. Mostly went to my grandma's house for it when I was young. After she couldn't cook anymore, my brothers took turns cooking every other year.

6 years ago, I closed on my mobile home in Vista, CA the day before Thanksgiving. The next day, I picked up a turkey dinner at Marie Callanders restaurant and went to the new house and spent the day there planning where everything was gonna go. The carpeting smelled so bad of dog pee, that I ended up pulling it all up that day and putting it in a pile outside. I was excited tho to get moved into the place and get settled!

Beth, that is a huge group!! Is that you at the end on the right?

Beth, that is such a great picture of your family! Are you on the far right on the front row?

Mom and Dad came from Germany in 1952 leaving all of our relatives behind and even though I've met some, never really got to know them. But all of you make up for that.

Irmi wrote:Beth, that is such a great picture of your family! Are you on the far right on the front row?

Mom and Dad came from Germany in 1952 leaving all of our relatives behind and even though I've met some, never really got to know them. But all of you make up for that.

I'm in the front row, third from the left.

Thanks for the nice comments.

Beth, that's a big family.

I don't seem to have many Thanksgiving memories. I would probably go home or to Dallas. After Harold and I married we would go to his mother's. I probably didn't start cooking for Thanksgiving until after his mother died.

My younger son was born November 15 and my dad and mother came with the Thanksgiving meal already cooked. That was the only time my dad ever came to any place I lived. My dad did a lot of the cooking after he retired. I liked his dressing and wish I had paid more attention to what he put in it.

Martha

we often had family in one aunt had 4 sons... an uncle had 9 but they lived further away and really don't remember them coming over for a meal.. my grandparent's would come over as well Grandpa was a gentle retiring person he rarely rocked the boat so to speak grandma was more controlling more just more and one day we were all having pie and grandma decided to have another piece... and grandpa said "H..., ma that is your third piece" I think we all thought you go grandpa so out of character for him but grandma always micro managed his diet ... he live to be 103 lived 17 years after grandma passed away... that memory always brings a smile to my mind...
Thanksgiving evolves from larger gatherings to smaller back up to larger then smaller and now when in a park can be very large
sheila

The only relatives close by were my father’s younger brother, his wife, my aunt, and their two sons, my cousins. One year we would host Thanksgiving and they would host Christmas. Then the following year we would alternate which holiday each family had. That’s about it, but I can still smell the wonderful aroma of pies baked earlier in the day, turkey roasting in the oven and lots of great conversation.
Sandi

I remember in my high school years we would go to the high school football game followed by dinner buffet at a large hotel in the city and then attend the opening of whatever movie was being introduced that year (usually a Christmas one, I think). Funny, but I remember those Thanksgiving Days more than the ones we did at home in other years. They were a lot of work!

Evie

When I was growing up we would go to my Grandparents farm (Moms side) and get together with our cousins. We would play football outside and then have Thanksgiving diner. In the early evening we would go to town to my Aunts place (Dad's sister) and meet other set of grandparents, cousins, etc and have more Turkey. The kids would play games and grown ups sit around and visit. Then we would head home. Always a fun time. After I got married we would have Thanksgiving with my side and then drive to his families for more food and visits with family.
This Thanksgiving I will be here by myself. Will go to my daughters place on Friday and we will have Thanksgiving on Sunday with my brother, his wife, my Mother and grandkids. So will have a nice weekend.

Enjoying the memories! Beth, what a great photo. If my mother's family hadn't been spread all over the country, we could have had a group like that! Before moving to Washington, we did spend most holidays with my dad's side of the family. I have one (step) cousin a month older and we didn't see each other often so holidays were fun. She has been moved into a memory care facility during the past few months which is so sad. Definitely grateful for my health this year!

Hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving however you spend the day tomorrow!

Thanksgiving was a fairly quiet time in our family because we almost always just had our family--only one brother. My dad's big thing was buying a bottle of wine, which we kids were allowed to have small glasses of. My parents were not wine drinkers, but it was the one thing special about Thanksgiving.

Christmas was the crazy time where all of my 10 sets of aunts and uncles on my mother's side got together at one aunt's house. It was a small house, but somehow, we fit in those aunts and uncles and all of my cousins--about 22 or 23 in the 50s. Later had a few others for a total of 26 first cousins in that family. I was #6, and most of the rest were born after WWII in the baby boom so there were quite a few around the same ages.

Every year at Thanksgiving, , I think back over past Thanksgivings that I have had over the course of my life. When I was growing up, my grandmother always did Thanksgiving dinner. My other grandmother died when I was 5. My dad’s aunt and uncle would always join us at Grandmas for dinner. Then They moved to Florida. So it was just us and my grams and step grandfather then. She and mom took turns doing the dinner. Later They too moved to Florida and it became dinners with my aunts and mom alternating Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. We did turkey at both Christmas and Thanksgiving and whoever was hosting one that year would do the turkey and usually the mashed potatoes and dressing, with my aunts or mom doing pies and other sides. They were feasts, let me tell you. Turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, stuffed celery, dinner rolls, cranberry sauce, green bean cassarole, jello salad and pumpkin and apple pie. We always had a good time, ate too much, the men watched the Detroit Lions play football.

When we moved up north and started new traditions. My dad’s aunt’s family lived up here about 25 miles from us and Thty were deer hunters and outdoors people. Deer season would find them setting up deer camp way out in the Pigeon River Country state Forest, about 35 miles from here. One of their traditions was to bury a Turkey in the ground the night before Thanksgiving and let it cook all night. We started going out there for a few years, ,bringing green bean casserole and other stuff. There were friends who came too, bringing more food. I hold fond memories of those meals, sitting by the fire that was going after the Turkey came out, in a chair or on a stump. One year it was lightly snowing. We had good times out there, The guys/gals dressed in their orange hunting outfits. Or at least wearing something hunter orange as required by law. The rest of us wearing cold weather duds. Later dinner was moved closer to home as the older members started to pass away and eventually stopped altogether. By then my aunt and uncle had moved up here, next door to us, so dinners were usually at their house with my uncle’s sister and husband. Over the years it became just us and now of course it’s just me. For a few short years I would spend Thanksgiving in the U.P and then with my one cousins by marriage. Now I just do my own thing unless I get an invite and here, that’s weather dependent. But I don’t care. I have the memories to look back on. I’m content.

I don't have any Thanksgiving memories except one that might have happened on Thanksgiving. We had my Mother's parents at our house which was very unusual. We must have had pumpkin pie as there was a can of whipping cream on the table. When I put the cream on my pie my aim was off and whipped cream sprayed all over my grumpy Grannies face and glasses. I don't remember what happened next but probably wasn't good. My Mother was very sick from the time I was around 9 until I was a senior in high school and I actually have little to no memories of many of those years.